“That Day ……”
Xu’s voice rang out slowly inside the house, “I took the two maids, You Zhi and Shu Xiang, to clean the new house that Brother Yan was preparing as usual, and on the way I looked out through the small window as usual, but I saw my father’s carriage passing by in a hurry. I waited outside for more than an hour before my father came out, and it was Huo who sent him out.”
The study was silent, and Huo’s eyes closed in despair.
“When I saw Huo, I angrily rebuked her for her lack of propriety and shame, but Huo knelt down in front of me and swore to God that she was not my father’s concubine, but had only known him since childhood. Later, when her family fell on hard times and her husband died, she couldn’t survive with a son and a daughter and happened to run into my father, who helped them.”
“Naturally I don’t believe it, if father had only helped them, how could he have stayed here for more than an hour.”
“At this time, the Wen Zhong siblings heard the commotion and ran over, and the first time they saw me, they weren’t surprised, they obviously knew me. This knowledge made me even angrier, and I turned to go outside, wanting to return to the house to tell my mother and grandfather, but was pulled back by Huo, who knelt before me and begged bitterly, saying that my father was a great scholar of his time, the head of the world’s literati, and that if my misunderstanding brought my father into disrepute, she would be a sinner for a thousand years. She also swore on the lives of her sons and daughters that she and her father had never had an affair.”
Wen Zhong also came forward and saluted me, saying that I had misunderstood and that the Great Sir had come to instruct him in his studies. I saw that he was courteous and polite, and with Huo’s words, I believed him, and apologised to them for my impulsiveness, and helped Huo up myself.”
“Huo took me by the hand and said she would tell me about the little things my father had done to help them over the years, and I actually believed her and followed her into the house, where she poured me a cup of tea and then told me about it, and this was for a little over half an hour, and I also finished that tea and passed out.
When I woke up, I was in a speeding carriage, surrounded by a black cloth, not knowing whether it was day or night outside, and next to me lay Zhi Shu and Shu Xiang.
I dared not shout, lest anyone outside should know that I was awake. It took a lot of effort to wake them both up, and the three of us groped around softly, trying to escape when they weren’t looking. Before we could finish groping, the carriage stopped and we hurriedly lay down. Shortly afterwards, the black cloth was lifted and a man poked his head out and, seeing that we were still awake, put it down again and gave it to another man saying that he had gone to buy food so that he could finish eating and make the journey.
When he had gone, and sensing that another man seemed to have got out of the carriage, Zhi Shu quietly poked her head out and saw that the man was standing and going to the side of the road to take a leak, so she climbed out and was about to take the reins and drive the carriage away when the man found her. She climbed out and picked up the reins, but she didn’t get past the carriage, which wasn’t going very fast, and when the man who had gone shopping caught up with her, Shu Xiang told me to jump off the carriage first. I hadn’t gone far when a speeding carriage came up behind me and knocked me to the ground.
There was a dead silence in the room.
Meng suppressed her anger and walked step by step in front of Mr. Big, asking word by word, “After Wan’er disappeared, you couldn’t wait to marry Huo, did you already know that they had killed Wan’er?”
“Yes.”
Snap!
Meng slapped the older gentleman across the face.
The slap used all her strength and Mr. Big’s head was deflected by the blow and his cheeks quickly turned red.
Meng was furious, “Are you still a human being, Wan’er she is your own daughter!”
After being slapped twice in quick succession, Mr. Big lost his senses as he stood up and stared angrily at Meng, “Who are you to resent me? It was you, who interfered and married me. Poor Lian’er had to marry a merchant, and she bore him children but was not treated well.
“Rebel son!”
The old gentleman pointed at him with shaking hands, “Kneel down!”
Instead of kneeling down, he took a step forward, “Father, you are the one to blame for this. If the Meng family has done you a favour, you can repay it yourself, but why did you ask me to do it for you? Do you know how painful it was for me to learn that I would marry her? Do you know that I never laughed sincerely all those years?
But even so, I never had a first or last word with Lian’er, I always kept to my own manners. I only wanted her to have something to fall back on in the future, so I instructed Zhong’er in her studies. It is she who ……”
He pointed at Xu, “You have raised a good granddaughter, and you barged into Lian’er’s house to accuse her and abuse her without distinguishing between red and white. It was because Lian’er was afraid that it would affect my reputation that she panicked and wanted to send her far away until Zhong’er had finished her exams and then bring her back. It was she who jumped off the cart and fell on her head and lost her memory, what has that to do with Lian’er?”
“You shut up!”
The old gentleman was so angry with him that his eyes were blackened and he could barely stand.
Xu Yan helped him sit down and looked at the eldest gentleman indifferently, “Why doesn’t father blame himself? Since you have a sweetheart, you should have told grandfather earlier, even if grandfather had betrothed you and mother, if you had said so, grandfather would not have forced you. Mother would not have abandoned her family and come all the way from Jiangnan to marry here. If you didn’t like us, you could have aborted us with a bowl of soup before we were even born. But you didn’t. You allowed grandfather, married mother, welcomed us into the world, and now you blame us for all this. Father, where have you been reading all your sage books? Is this how you set an example to the literati of the world?”
“b*****d, it is not your turn to be in charge of my affairs!”
“If you had merely married a plain wife, my son would naturally not have bothered. But someone intends to murder my sister and get two of our maids killed, I cannot ignore that! If father does not want to make a scene in the public court and lose your face, repudiate Huo at once and keep your nose out of her affairs from now on.”